


The Cruelty Of Fate

by Lokisgame



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mentions of Cancer, No happy ending here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2018-12-16 03:35:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11820390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lokisgame/pseuds/Lokisgame
Summary: 1. What if Scully never got Mulder back?2. What if Scully lost the Russian Roulette at Mulder’s hand.3. What if Scully worked in a morgue and Mulder had terminal cancer, and they’d fall in love.read the tags, apparently this piece can ruin your day, fair warning, this is posted only for archiving purposes





	1. Chapter 1

He died in a car accident, parked it on a tree on some God forsaken ice-covered road in Wisconsin.  
She gave up William two days earlier, when Skinner called her that they found his body, real-dead this time. No sabotage, no conspiracy or alien invasion, unless aliens came and fuckin’ pissed from their space ship making it rain.  
2012 came and went, aliens never came, she never knew she should wait for them anyway. CGB Spender is dead.  
Depression takes her, obsession kicks in once a month, when her uterus is leaking, she’s ready to go look for Will, but is too scared to fuck it up. If she only hadn’t kicked out Mulder that night.  
The Gunmen are dead too. Reyes got transferred, resigned, married Dogget.  
Her mother moves to California, she wants her to come too, but Scully turns her down. She can’t stand sunshine anymore, the children’s laugh, Bill’s ever present “I-told-you-so” look, Tara’s mindless devotion to her kids. Maggie leaves, she stays behind.  
The nights grow long, the wine grows cheap.  
She used to be a doctor, now there’s only medical bills. The nosebleeds are back. It’s benign this time, even cancer won’t take her, she had her chance.  
She starts to wonder, Fellig, Bruckman… she goes to the doctor, removes her implant.  
Life clings to her, like a disease, and the pain, constant, dull pain between her eyebrows, never enough to scream, never enough to ignore.  
The wine grows strong, the apartment grows cheap. White walls, gray walls, bare floor. One chair, folding table, mattress covered in plastic. He won’t come to her anymore, not even in dreams. She forgot the color of his eyes, the weight of his hand, the crunch of his seeds.  
Their son would be seventeen now. Through a haze she spots a young man waiting in check-out line in front of her. Tall, broad shoulders filling nice leather jacket, honey-colored hiking boots. Something wakes inside her, a distant light… The boy turns, spares a glance for her, smiles politely, but it’s not him, nor her, not them. A stranger. She asks for a pack of Morley’s.  
She stopped giving Skinner her number, if he’d need her, he’d find her.  
She looks at herself in the mirror, gone is the vibrant red, hair grew thin, cheap hair dye and even cheaper shampoo, she forgot the feel of conditioner. The suits are a memory, torn sneakers and lose jeans are her uniform. She found a faded Knicks t-shirt in a thrift shop for 2$, bought it. The memory of his smile when he first saw her wearing his lived for two nights, then faded, like everything else she remembers about him these days. It’s too cold to sleep wearing the shirt alone to bed, in bed, alone and alive when everything else is dead.  
She thought herself strong, ambitious, independent. Now she knows she was stubborn and selfish, and she missed her chance.  
The night is cold, she spends her last money and takes the bus to see the haunted house one last time.  
The lights on the fourth floor of 2630 Hegal Place are on. She looks at the mail box, some strange name, sounds foreign, Duch-something, it’s dark and she forgot her glasses.  
She never sees the car until it’s too late. The screech of tires makes a man in the fourth floor apartment look up from his book, he looks out the window, calls an ambulance.  
She doesn’t feel cold, only fire. Fellig, Bruckman… they were wrong.  
Thank God.


	2. 1 in 4 Chances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-Pusher

She just finished unpacking her groceries, still thinking about the guy from 42, all in black. Usually she’d think him hot, but there was something wrong with him today, she hadn’t seen him like this in over a year. He didn’t offer help, elevator door almost shut in her face.  
A noise somewhere in the building, close, this floor. Silence that rushed through the apartment was deafening, more than absence of sound. A void, what space must sound like. Hands shaking she picked up the phone. The walls in this building are thin, few inches, barely.  
“911 what is your emergency”  
“I heard gun shot in the apartment next door”  
“Are you safe ma’am?”  
“Yes, I think” he will come right in, tell her it was an accident, and she’ll put down the phone, make him some tea.  
“What’s your address”  
“2630 Hegal Place, Alexandria, apartment 44”  
“And where have you heard the shots”  
“Next door, 42”  
“Thank you ma’am, please stay inside and as far away from doors and windows as possible, I’m sending a police unit”  
“Please hurry, the man who lives there is an FBI agent, he has a gun”  
“Please remain calm, help is on it’s way”  
“Thank you”  
She went to the kitchen, sat at the table and lacing her fingers, began to pray.  
Police came knocking 15 minutes later. 

The pretty redhead who used to come often, vanished, as did the three men who cleaned out the apartment. The place was listed for rent a few weeks later.  
Those who tried to stay there, said they saw the tv turn itself on at night, heard sobbing by the door. No one stayed there longer than a week.  
The apartment was still empty four months later, when she moved out. She bought a house, with a large lawn, and a redish-brown dog, whom she named Fox.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt from tumblr - Au where Scully never joined the FBI and works in the basement of the hospital (where the morgue is) and all the hospital refers to her as “Spooky Scully”. Mulder comes in as a terminal cancer patient and they somehow meet and fall in love.

She stood over the body with hand poised to make the first cut, bright light casting everything beyond into shadows, when she heard the doors open behind her.  
A man entered, baseball hat on his head, she couldn’t see much more to be honest.  
“Can I help you?” She spoke loudly, seeing the man coming closer, stepping into the light “are you lost?”  
“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you” she noticed his stark features, sunken eyes, bald head under the hat, unnaturally so, cancer. “I just wanted to see where I was heading, so to speak”  
“Is this some kind of a joke?” anger took over her posture, the man raised his hands defensively.  
“No, I’m sorry, really sorry, I just” he hung his head, dropping the act and she instantly felt bad “I just found out, that there’s nothing they can do for me, and I thought, I might start getting use to the idea” he stepped a little closer, looking everywhere but at the body stretched out on the table “we fear the unknown, so”  
“I’m sorry” was all she could say, the man rocked back on his heels, hands pushed deep inside his pockets, blue jeans hanging lose around his hips.  
“I knew the morgue was here, saw it in pictures a thousand times, but I’ve never actually been here”  
“Very few have the chance” compassion made her pull the sheet over the deceased “are you a police officer?”  
“Was, FBI agent” he said, visibly relaxing once the elephant in the room was hidden, he looked at her with deep green eyes “Special Agent Fox Mulder”  
“Dana Scully, forensic pathologist” she managed a smile and he stepped closer, shaking her hand over the dead body.  
“Then we probably have worked together” he smiled, warm and kind, still handsome despite the disease’s obvious side effects “I’ve seen a lot of murders in my time, any idea what did this one in?”  
“No, not yet at least, I just completed the external examination and found no visible signs of trauma, the victim is Caucasian male, age 40 to 45, and except for one detail, on the outside he looks perfectly healthy”  
“Right” he chuckled, clearing his throat, “I thought it’s rude to ask” they both glanced at the tented sheet, obviously an impressive erection beneath it.  
“If you’d ask for my preliminary opinion, he probably died of heart failure, due to extreme exertion, yet the cause of that, apart from the obvious trigger, would require opening him up” she smiled and he smiled back, knowing well what she was implying “and I can’t do that, with you standing here”  
“Right, I don’t think I’m ready to see that live, just yet” he took a few steps, walking backwards, keeping his eyes firmly on hers “maybe next time”  
She huffed out a laugh, shaking her head.  
“Can I ask you out for some coffee? It’s almost lunchtime, and he’s not going anywhere” his smile was charming as hell. The devil tempting her with his rebel ways. The snap of latex gloves coming of her hands sealed her fate.  
“One coffee”  
“I saw a machine down the hall”  
She followed and he held the door for her, hand resting on the small of her back as he led her to a row of plastic seats, speaking excitedly.  
“Have you heard about a group of religious isolationists calling themselves The Kindered?”

 

They laid in bed, pain killers making it one of the rare nights they could actually do something other than suffer together. But it came at a price, Mulder’s humor.  
“Once I’m gone, you’ll cut me up and see what went wrong” he said, stroking her back tenderly, nails scratching up and down her spine. She used to love it, the way he couldn’t stop touching her, his hands always searching for places where his pain could be silenced by her pleasure.  
“I can’t, don’t say things like that”  
“Why? that’s the truth, we both know it, there’s not much time left Scully” he says against the crown of her head “I can feel it”  
She kissed his chest, a little to the left from his sternum, his heart beating like a tired hummingbird’s wings. She kissed his dry, cool skin, breathing in their combined scent, wondering how he smelled before the his diet consisted of food and not meds.  
“This thing here” she kissed him again thankful for every swell of his chest “tells me, it’s not your time yet”  
Moving up she ran her hand over his bald scalp, imagining how soft and silky smooth his hair had to be, the little unruly lock that she knew from pictures. Framing his face in her hands, sharp cheekbones and sunken cheeks, his beautiful features sharp as Death’s scythe, a sacrifice she demanded for a few more weeks they could be together.  
She looked into his eyes, the only thing about him that remained unchanged, calm and intelligent, shining bright with morphine, glassy with tears, his humor a mask.  
“You’re not going anywhere” she caught his lips, and he returned her kiss, drew her close, although it made her feel every bone of his gaunt body. It was all he could do, all he could give her, and more than anything this was the reason behind his tears. The less he had, the more he wanted to give. “You hear me? You’re not going anywhere”  
He didn’t say anything, words were for people who had time for pondering their meanings. He kissed her, and it wasn’t a promise, but an apology for the reasurance he couldn’t give her. He kissed her as if every kiss could be their last. Until there was no strength left in him and he slept in her arms.  
She kept watch, counting each breath as he lay wrapped around her.  
In, out, in, out, in, out, in…  
She fell asleep sometime before dawn. He never woke up.

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on [tumblr](https://lokisgame.tumblr.com/post/163951001492/what-if-scully-never-got-mulder-back)


End file.
